The last few weeks have especially demonstrated the impact that HR practitioners can have on enabling their organizations to thrive in the face of new business challenges or crises. An HR organization that can move faster, innovate, anticipate challenges, adapt quicker, and stay laser-focused on the outcomes that matter most can enable their organization to achieve sustained performance. This article delves into the notion of “Exponential HR” – ways in which HR can disproportionately accelerate an organizations’ ability to move faster and adapt to market conditions more than ever before. Six practices for how HR can operate to achieve this goal are discussed, 1) Outcomes over Activity, 2) Pace over Perfection, 3) Data over Opinions, 4) Experience over Programs, 5) Digitally-Integrated over Technology-Enabled 6) Teams over Individuals. With this article as the backdrop, I encourage HR leaders to ask their teams, at a future strategy meeting, two simple questions: a) how well are we doing in each of these six areas? b) what is one thing we can do (in at least one of these areas) that will enable us to accelerate our ability to become an “Exponential HR” organization?
